1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a decoding system for the decoding of code words which are protected against the occurrence of a plurality of symbol errors within a code word by means of a Reed-Solomon code, said decoding system comprising receiving circuits for the sequential reception of the code symbols in order to form a code word therefrom, first calculating circuits for determining a series of syndrome symbols from the code word by way of the parity check matrix [H] of the code, second calculating circuits which are fed by the first calculating means in order to solve the key equation for obtaining the error locator sigma(z) and the error evaluator omega(z), third calculating circuits which are fed by the second calculating means for determining the zero positions of the error locator in order to obtain the positions of possibly incorrect code symbols, and fourth calculating circuits which are fed by the third calculating circuits in order to determine the symbol errors associated with incorrect code symbols from said zero points, code symbols which are correctable by way of error value (values) and location data of symbol errors, being presented to a user output.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A decoding system of this kind is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,142,174 which describes a fast decoding method for the correction of at most three symbols in a code word. This capability is inadequate in given cases.